Google, in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau, have launched an excellent new site called ‘Good to know’. The site aims to provide tips and advice about online security and privacy issues to users of all levels to help them protect their personal information on the web. Check out the site for yourself here.

The site offers advice on a range of issues from choosing online passwords, password strength and signing out of web sites correctly to more advanced issues such as secure sites, SSLs and cookies.

As you would expect from Google the site is well designed and easy to use, all the information is written in a way that can be understood by all levels of user, almost all the advice given comes with a tutorial video to explain the issues further and there are many links to other sites that you may find useful. There is also a handy Jargon Buster section for those who don’t know their spam from their cookies.

This site is an invaluable resource for almost all internet users, but it is also very useful for anyone who owns a web site. Web site owners (particularly those with ecommerce sites) should take a look at the Good to Know site and assess if their own sites conform to the advice given by Google about safe sites. If your site does not conform to Google’s advice then you may lose credibility; but more importantly you may also lose potential customers who do not trust your site enough to make purchases on it.

If you feel your site does not conform to the advice given on Good to Know or you want to discuss any specific issues around the security of your web site, give us a call and we will be happy to advise you of ways you can increase the security of your site.